A City With A Heart

The genre—thumping coffee-table tome—is tricky as it has come to be associated with upmarket triviality with an emphasis on uninvolved reading. Let it be said at once, then, that this handsomely printed and produced six-pounder contains above-average photographs. Mr Bhojani lacks Cartier Bresson's gift for the magic 'moment' and he has a tendency to lapse into vacuous fashion photography. Generally, however, he gallantly tries to capture the city's fast-changing moods and elusive character.

Mood and character take us to the core of the difficulty. How do you encapsulate these twin characteristics with camera and lap-top? Mr Katiyar himself confesses early on: "No book can capture every mood and nuance of a city like Bombay." True. What then is the mandate of the authors? Understandably, a foray in the direction of nuance and mood is sincerely attempted, but the main weakness it seems to me is the absence of any evocation of the sounds and smells of the city. Bhojani and Katiyar clearly love the 'bitch goddess'; alas, one detects a lack of passion in their love affair. In his workmanlike prose Katiyar deftly mixes nuggets of potted history with brisk narrative and he generally pays obeisance at all the right historical, social and cultural landmarks. Unfortunately, he misses the more critical ones (there is, for instance, no explanation of how India's most forward-looking and liberal city threw up a reactionary like Thackeray) and I take the liberty of some corrective action.

Bombay is not merely a city where you can become rich quickly. It is not merely a city where a la Amitabh Bachchan you can sleep on park benches one day and the next day you are ensconced in a sumptuous Juhu castle. Most major metropolises are areas of opportunity where rags-to-riches tales are commonplace. Bombay has something else. It has a generosity of spirit which gives people with new, even crazy, ideas a chance. In a sense it is a city where crackpots are welcome—some of them even make it.

I remember in the early '80s when I was consumed with the idea of a "Sunday paper", no less a person than Ramnath Goenka gently mocked me. It wouldn't work, he said, because the concept was too foreign for the country. My friend Ashwin Shah who put up the money was similarly sceptical. What the hell is a Sunday paper, he asked at our first serious meeting.

And yet when the first issue appeared in August 1981 brimming with flaws and imperfections, the readers of Bombay were critical of the product but they had no problem with the foreign concept. They did not know what a Sunday paper was but they still gave the idea a chance. This generosity is available for all crackpots—and it makes Mumbai a very special and rare city.

In a sense Bombay celebrates the slightly crank entrepreneur. Whether you are flogging a novel potato peeler or a ball-point pen which writes in six colours or a bush-shirt which can be worn on both sides, innovation and creativity have a home here. In the maidans of Bombay enterprising entrepreneurs hawk extraordinary ideas and goods which in other cities would be considered eccentric. Here eccentricity is given commercial possibilities.

The other quality which makes Bombay unique is the raw energy of its inhabitants. You can feel the air pulsating with the stuff which for the out-of-towner can initially be menacing. As a result, almost everyone in Bombay, no matter how low, has his private blue-print for moving up—upward mobility minus the social snobbery. Again, it is not a question of simply making more money; that by itself would be crude and mundane. The ambition is to rise above your existing station and if in that edifying pursuit monetary prospects are improved, so much the better.

On my evening constitutional down Napean Sea Road I used to notice several families living on a pavement which couldn't have been more than eight feet wide. These were Bombay's famous pavement dwellers, all however, gainfully employed. Some months later I noticed one of the families had set up a make-shift tea shop on the pavement. Soon biscuits and buns appeared. A couple of months later the tea shop became a modest eatery serving a fixed hot meal with a limited a-la-carte menu thrown in. I occasionally exchanged greetings with the proprietor and was sad to see one day that he had disappeared. Happily, the restaurant stayed. I asked the new owner where the original was: "He's moved to Colaba to a new pavement. Business is better there."

Mr Katiyar like many others believes the Bombay film industry is crucial to the character of the city. It is a common misapprehension. In fact, Bollywood has made very little contribution besides perpetuating a third-rate glamour myth. In nearly two decades of fairly gregarious and varied social and professional interface in Bombay, the film star of either sex did not cross my path on more than a couple of occasions. I then realised that the city in a master stroke had managed to contain these denizens to the Juhu-Pali Hill area. They were put into a sort of ghetto and they remained there, apparently quite happy.

If anything, the Bombay film industry has had a baneful influence on the city. It corrupted some of the best, most progressive Urdu and Hindi literary talent into churning out mindless songs and stories. Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, Masoom Raza Rahi, KaifiAzmi, Inder Raj Anand (Faiz came, saw and vamoosed) were some of its notable victims. The late Rajinder Singh Bedi once told me with tears in his eyes of the "golden cage" he was trapped in.

Another minor error of judgement the authors commit is to minimise the role of the Parsees. Of course, Bombay is a melting pot enriched by diverse communities; however, the Bawajis (and to a lesser extent the Goans) because they were genuinely alien brought with them an exoticism which added a distinct flavour to the demographic brew. And because they were grateful refugees they gave back to the city immeasurably more than the city gave them. Bombay has a powerful photo of Dhirubhai Ambani but not of J.R.D. Tata. The Ambanis are doubtless wonderful people but they are really carpet-baggers making huge profits for themselves and their shareholders. They have no affection or feeling for the capital they prosper in. If you put them on Mars, they will make money there.

In food, architecture, social institutions, philanthropy, humour and a patois called Bombaiya, the Parsees have contributed magnificently. They are the unsung makers of Bombay.

I have left food for last because Bhojani and Katiyar miss little when it comes to detailing the vast variety of cuisines available. However, behind the array there is an underlying philosophy which needs amplification. Two crafty assumptions embody the cuisines. First, you have to cater to every pocket. In Delhi, for example, the middle-lower-middle-class citizen has very limited options except the dhaba or roadside eating. Bombay, by contrast, is a moveable feast for this class.

Second, in a city of hectic private dreams and pulsating energy, time is an extremely precious commodity. No lingering is encouraged, and as a result, service is lightning-fast. The jokey command written in Irani restaurants—"talking politics not allow"—has a sound commercial base. As one owner told me: "Those who talk politics sit for long time. That no good for business."

Bombay incontestably is a big city. But remember it is a big city because it has a big heart.